The Namibian Genocide
The Stream interviewed Mari Serebrov, author of Mama Namibia, the first historical novel on the genocide in Namibia. She also wrote the children’s book Jahohora and First Day, a retelling of the Herero creation story:
The Stream: What were your initial thoughts when you learned of the pontiff’s call for a probe into Israel’s alleged genocide in Gaza?
Mari Serebrov: Pope Francis’s call for a genocide investigation into Israel’s anti-terrorist actions brings to mind the Pharisees and the “teachers of the law” who brought a woman before Jesus, saying she was “caught in the act of adultery” and so, under the Mosaic law, she should be stoned. We all know Jesus’s answer: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8)
Like those Pharisees of old who ignored the man who was caught in adultery with the woman, Francis, in pointing a finger at Israel, is turning a blind eye to the terrorists who are actively pursuing the annihilation of Israel. In so doing, he is giving the terrorists permission to continue to seek the destruction of Israel while denying Israel the right of self-preservation.
TS: You are a historian on the topic of genocide. How accurate is Francis’s use of the term, and how does it feature in the Vatican’s own historic dealing with the genocidal regimes?
MS: The pope’s statement not only smacks of ignorance of the history and meaning of the word “genocide,” it also ignores the Vatican’s own long and continuing history of complicity in genocides and its ongoing paternalistic colonialism in developing countries. Only a few years ago, Pope Francis referred to the 1915 Armenian Massacre as the first genocide of the twentieth century – a reference that denied the 1904-1908 genocide in German Southwest Africa (modern-day Namibia). Conducted under an official extermination order, that genocide resulted in the death of 85% of the Herero and half the Nama through warfare, lynchings, a death march through the Kalahari, medical experiments, and concentration camps.
TS: Has the Catholic Church apologized or repented of its complicity in these genocides?
MS: On the contrary, more than a century later, the Catholic Church is still benefiting from that genocide by holding large tracts of land that were stolen from the Herero and Nama. In one situation, a Catholic missionary brokered a peace deal on Christmas Day in 1906 between the Bondelswarts, a Nama clan, and the German colonial army. As a part of that treaty, the Bondelswarts had to surrender their guns and leave their ancestral homelands. The Catholic Church then laid claim to some of that land. One of those tracts is comprised of 57,000 hectares of farmland in a traditional Bondelswarts community.
Despite government land reforms and claims on that land from the descendants of the genocide survivors, many of whom remain landless, the Church has refused to return the expropriated land. As of 2017, it was leasing about one-seventh of that parcel to the Bondelswarts.
A recent audit found that the Catholic Church has 48 properties in Namibia that each include more than 100,000 hectares, in addition to numerous smaller parcels. In total, the Catholic Church has N$11 billion in investments in Namibia, with most of that in land. In justifying its continued ownership of the land, the Catholic Church falls back on the colonial belief that it knows best how to manage it.
Whenever I sign a copy of Mama Namibia, my historic novel that puts a face to the long-denied 1904-1908 genocide, I note that “with every genocide we ignore or deny, we grant permission for the next.”
TS: What is your message to Pope Francis on this topic?
MS: Rather than impugning Israel, Pope Francis needs to clean up his own house, sweeping it of all vestiges of avarice, colonialism, and genocide.
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.